Claimed as the Ruthless Alpha's Fake Luna

Seraphina POV:

"Darling, do try to look happy. You're representing the Foster Pack."

My stepmother Linda's voice carried a silken threat, her smile as sharp as the crystal glass in her hand. I forced a smile, the tug of muscles never reaching my eyes.

Across the room, my father, Alpha Arthur Foster, was chatting and laughing with Hayden's father, their heads bent together over champagne like two merchants closing a deal on livestock. Which, in a sense, they were. The transaction of trading a daughter for profit was nearly complete.

After my mother died, I had spent the past sixteen years being invisible. My wolf had never awakened-the therapists called it "dormant," while my father called it a defect.

The entire pack treated me as someone of no consequence. The only things that truly belonged to me were the crescent pendant my mother had left me, and the betrothal contract bearing my name-a contract made with Hayden before I could even walk.

And now I was the prized mare-polished carefully, then paraded onto the stage of the engagement banquet.

I smoothed the silk of my gown. A prickle of unease crept up my spine. My fiancé, Hayden Price - he should have been by my side - was nowhere to be seen.

My gaze swept the room again. My stepsister, Isabelle, was gone too.

"I need some fresh air," I murmured, ignoring Linda's disapproving frown.

Guided by instinct, I bypassed the crowded terrace and walked to the elevators, pressing the button for the private suites floor.

The luxurious corridor was eerily quiet, a stark contrast to the cacophony downstairs.

A muffled giggle echoed from the end of the corridor, from a suite registered to the Price Pack. I recognized that laugh. It was Isabelle's. My blood ran cold.

My heart hammered against my ribs, each beat a drum of impending humiliation. I felt the burn of betrayal before I even saw it. My hand was steady as I raised the keycard to the door. It had been given to me as the "future Luna" of the Price Pack. The electronic lock clicked open with damning finality.

The scene inside stole the air from my lungs. On a plush velvet sofa, Hayden was tangled with a half-dressed Isabelle, his hand possessively on her thigh. The air was thick with their mingled scents of cheap perfume and arrogance.

Isabelle let out a theatrical shriek, clutching a cushion to her chest. Hayden, however, just looked irritated. His expression was one of annoyance at being interrupted, not guilt.

"Sera." He didn't even sit up. He tipped his head back against the sofa and regarded me. "It's not what it looks like."

"Then tell me what it looks like," I said. My voice came out strangely calm. "I have time."

Something flickered across his face - irritation, then contempt, then a bored kind of honesty. "Fine. You want honesty?" He reached for his shirt. "Every Alpha in that ballroom knows what this engagement is. Border routes. Patrol rights. A bloodline worth merging. The Mating is a contract, Sera, and you are its signature page. I was always going to give you the title, the house, the respect." His mouth curved. "All I ever asked was that you not make things difficult."

"Difficult," I repeated.

"Isabelle doesn't mean anything," he said, in the tone of a man discussing an appetizer. "She knows her place. You could stand to learn from her."

Isabelle let the cushion drop - deliberately, letting me see all of her. "Don't blame him, sister dear. He came to my room the night you signed the contracts. Ask yourself why he never once came to yours." Her smile was sweet poison. "You got the ring. I got the Alpha. We all get what we're good for."

I didn't scream. I didn't cry. A chilling calm descended over me. I raised my phone. The camera flash ruthlessly captured their shocked faces.

"Sera-" Hayden lunged for the phone. I sidestepped him effortlessly.

"Don't you dare touch me," I said, my voice low and venomous. "Come near me again, and the next thing I airdrop is the video."

There was no video. His face went white anyway. Guilty men never check.

I turned and walked out, leaving the door wide open for anyone to see. The sounds of their frantic scrambling were a pathetic melody behind me.

Back in the ballroom, the cheerful music felt like a personal mockery. My father and Alpha Price were on the main stage, beaming, about to raise their glasses for the official announcement. The entire elite of the werewolf society was watching.

I didn't hesitate. I walked straight to the stage, ascending the steps with a predatory grace I didn't know I possessed, and took the microphone from my father's stunned hand.

The hall fell silent. My voice, amplified, rang out with perfect clarity. "I apologize for the interruption. There's been a change of plans."

I paused, letting the tension build. "The Mating between the Foster and Price packs is officially called off."

A collective gasp rippled through the crowd. I looked directly at the ballroom entrance, where Hayden and a hastily dressed Isabelle were now standing, frozen in horror.

"It seems Hayden has already found a more... enthusiastic partner in my dear stepsister, Isabelle."

With a flick of my thumb, I airdropped the photo to the main screen behind the stage. The image of their tawdry embrace, ten feet high, filled the screen. Chaos erupted. Shouts, whispers, and the satisfying sight of my father's face turning purple with rage.

I let the microphone drop. It clattered loudly on the stage, the sound a final, definitive punctuation mark. I turned my back on the ruin I'd created and walked away.

I made it three steps down from the stage.

A hand like a steel trap closed around my arm and wrenched me back. My father. Up close, Alpha Arthur Foster's face was the color of old wine, a vein jumping at his temple. Three hundred pairs of elite eyes were watching him, and every single one of them was watching his humiliation.

"Do you have any idea," he said, very quietly, "what you have just cost this pack?"

The crack of his palm across my face turned the music off. The ballroom went dead silent. I tasted copper. In the front row, Linda rose to her feet with fluid, delighted grace, one hand pressed to her mouth in perfect maternal horror - and behind her Isabelle was already crying, beautiful, luminous, photogenic tears. "Daddy, please, don't be angry at Sera. She's just upset. She didn't mean it."

"Ungrateful," my father said to the room, to the cameras, to anyone who would help him bury me. "You want to act like a stray? Then be one. I, Arthur Foster, Alpha of the Foster Pack, cast you out. Your name is struck from the roll. The bond is severed. You are no daughter of mine - you are no one."

I looked at my father one last time - the man whose name I had carried for eighteen years, who had just sold me and then burned me for objecting - and I smiled at him. Really smiled, for the first time all night.

"Thank you," I said. "You just made it very easy to never come back."

I ignored the furious roar of his voice chasing me out of the ballroom. For the first time, it had no power over me.

I didn't head for the main revolving door. Instead, I slipped into a small corridor-long, dark, reeking of disinfectant.

Suddenly, a suite door at the far end was thrown open with violent force.

Before I could even react, a huge, powerful hand grabbed my arm and dragged me into the darkness of the room.

The heavy door slammed shut, plunging us into near-total blackness. The click of the lock echoed like a jail cell closing. A man's harsh, ragged breathing filled the suffocating silence. He smelled of something wild and dangerous.

A low, guttural growl rumbled from his chest, vibrating through the hand on my arm and into my very bones. A single word, a primal claim:

"Mine."